According to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 65, No. 2, February 16, 2016, a 95 page report based on death certificate data from all 50 states and Washington D.C. filed in 2013, the top three causes of death are noted as Diseases of the Heart, Malignant Neoplasms (cancer), and Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases... read more

Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs’ realization in late October that it might have an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that stemmed from its contaminated water system came a couple weeks too late for at least one Navy veteran. read more

Christina Mecannic just wanted to help her life partner of 21 years, who’d been told by doctors he could die without a new kidney. Mecannic, 40, of Morgan in Greene County underwent surgery on April 6 at UPMC Montefiore to give one of her kidneys to Michael Yocabet, the father of their 18-year-old son. Her act of kindness turned tragic a month later when the couple found out Mecannic is infected with the hepatitis C virus and had unknowingly passed it to Yocabet during the transplant. read more